Music educators teach the topics of scales, modes, circle of 5ths and key signatures as part of formal musical training. The study of these fundamental topics is necessary in understanding how to read notated music. Traditionally, these topics are taught by having students write the notes of various scales on staves, draw intervalic symbols, and write accidentals within a scale and in key signatures. For tonal application, students often sing or play on a keyboard instrument the various scales they are studying in concurrent lab-type courses. Further, key signature memorization is often taught by rote and through frequent quizzing These traditional methods have achieved mixed results.
Students frequently object to the rigor involved in learning scales, modes, circle of 5ths and key signatures as part of their initiation to formal musical training. Deciding to dabble in introductory music fundamentals as part of their freshman-level survey courses in college, students may often change their minds about pursuing music for a future topic of study because of the work load and general lack of fun. Fundamental music topics are often left out of the curriculum in grades 5-8, the precise time formal operational students can comprehend these basic and necessary concepts. Since understanding scales, key signatures and the circle of 5ths is so essential in deciphering musical notation, educators need to have more enjoyable ways to engage their students when broaching these topics.
Although numerous textbooks written on the subject completely address fundamental music concepts, the application exercises in these books are often joyless read-and-write style activities. Computer applications like Finale and Sibelius, while marvelous in their capacity of synthesizing the sound that notation represents, require constant and expensive software upgrades. Also, these applications are tactile in a computer sense, generally accessible via a touch screen or typewriter-style keyboard.
Several types of simple musical teaching aids have been proposed—for example a “Music Teaching Aid” U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,522 (1996) to Hesnan. An embodiment of this device allows for the cross-referencing of certain musical information including note position, scale and chord calculation. These alignments are made possible through use of a series of slide-rule-type templates and slots over a planar base. While many broad claims regarding both instrumental technique and music theory are made in Hesnan's “Music Teaching Aid,” the device does not specifically address the melodic minor scale, which must be discussed in both an ascending as well as descending direction. Furthermore, Hesnan's device does not have tactile game pieces which could be used to help students manipulate educational content competitively in a game-like fashion as they learn.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,768,706 to Miller (1930) contains a graphic illustration of horizontal notes on a staff device lined up with a vertical picture of a piano keyboard. Unlike the scale isolator in the present invention, the keyboard in Miller's device cannot be horizontally juxtaposed with a horizontal picture of notes on the staff, which is the way musicians view both a staff and piano when reading and playing music. Also, Miller's device does not allow for keyboard notes containing accidentals to align with corresponding lines and spaces of the staff.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,977 to Hesnan (1997) has an embodiment that allows for key signature identification using a vertical slider. This device, however, does not have game-like manipulatives such as cards, major and 3 forms of minor formula flat board insert and accidentals to address musical rudiments in understanding how key signatures are derived.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,374 to Bowles (1990) has an embodiment containing a 6-sided die with several musical alphabet letters and colored tokens resembling coins with musical letters ABCDEFG. The 8-sided die in the present invention contains the numbers 01234567 as well as 2 coin-like game pieces; one containing the symbols for a sharp or a flat, and one containing the letter H (for Harmonic) and the letter M (for Melodic). Unlike the Bowles embodiment whose single 6-sided die does not address either every letter name of the musical alphabet, of which there are 7, or the concept of key signatures, the dice and 2 coins in the current invention enable the random possibility for a player to roll any of the 60 key-signature permutations.